The ‘Long Arm’ of CIPA and Its Newfound Pen-Trap Claims
If your company uses a third-party tool to power your website chat function or AI-assisted customer service, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals just delivered a ruling you should know about. On July 9, the court affirmed...more
Introduction - The intersection of digital customer service tools and privacy law continues to generate high-stakes litigation, especially in California, where the California Invasion of Privacy Act (“CIPA”) has become a...more
Readers of this blog may recall a piece in which we discussed an unfavorable Ninth Circuit California Invasion of Privacy Act (“CIPA”) internet wiretapping decision. Interestingly, the Ninth Circuit recently weighed in again...more
The Northern District of California recently dismissed, with prejudice, a purported class action against Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. (Royal Caribbean), alleging a violation of the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA)...more
A California bill aimed at curbing the explosion of lawsuits filed against businesses using common website tools like cookies, pixels, and session replay software has stalled out in the 2025 legislative session, meaning your...more
Healthline Media has agreed to pay $1.55 million to resolve allegations that it violated the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) – which is the largest settlement to date under the state’s landmark privacy law. The...more
In a significant win for Royal Caribbean Cruises, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit that alleged the cruise line’s website violated a California privacy law by using a TikTok tracking tool. The case, Kishnani v. Royal...more
The Ninth Circuit recently issued two back-to-back memoranda of dispositions addressing claims under the California Invasion of Privacy Act (“CIPA”) Section 631 and the common law tort of intrusion upon seclusion. First, on...more
It’s 2025, and somehow, we’re still dealing with lawsuits over a law that was born in the pen registers and rotary phones era. That law, the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA), a decades-old statute that’s suddenly...more
Readers may recall prior pieces in which we discussed a pair of law firms responsible for bringing California Invasion of Privacy Act (“CIPA”) arbitration demands against online businesses. These CIPA arbitration demands...more
Businesses just received some good news when a federal court dismissed a California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA) claim that aimed to expand the reach of the state’s wiretapping law to cover internet communications. The...more
Courts across the country are becoming skeptical of data breach and web tracking claims that assert theoretical privacy violations without alleging any actual injury to the plaintiffs. Recent decisions underscore that courts...more
In a big win for businesses, a California federal court just held that a “tester” plaintiff – someone who visits websites for purposes of initiating litigation – cannot bring a claim under the California Invasion of Privacy...more
Welcome to the twentieth installment in our monthly data privacy litigation report. We prepare these reports to provide updates on how courts in the United States have handled emerging data privacy trends. After our expansive...more
Two recent court decisions have provided businesses with long-awaited clarity on the reach of the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA) – and could begin to redefine digital privacy litigation for the better. Two separate...more
Over the past year, lawsuits under the California Invasion of Privacy Act (“CIPA”) have gained significant momentum, and there’s no sign of them slowing down. Both state and federal courts in California are seeing a rise in...more
Keypoint: California district courts continue to split over whether “knowledge” is required to plead liability under Section 631(a)’s fourth prong while two decisions show courts taking different approaches to VPPA claims at...more
These lawsuits make generalized allegations that business websites use software or tools to collect various types of device and browsing information from website visitors and that businesses then share such information with...more
Keypoint: Courts have started to issue Pixel-based wiretapping decisions, the Seventh Circuit weighs in on when a manufacturer can be forced to pay arbitration fees, and three courts showed different approaches to dismissing...more
Like many organizations, Peloton is facing a legal challenge under the California Invasion of Privacy Act (CIPA) relating to the company’s alleged use of third-party technology on its website to intercept chat communications...more
Readers of this blog likely know about the wave of consumer privacy litigation directed at online companies’ collection of consumer data. A litany of these cases are brought by Swigart Law Group, APC (“Swigart Law”), a law...more
Keypoint: The Central District of California issued several wiretapping decisions in May while two decisions on the VPPA illustrate how claims fail or succeed at the pleading stage. Welcome to the fourteenth installment in...more
As an onslaught of recent class actions allege, companies may be liable for eavesdropping and wiretapping based on the use of common analytics software on their platforms. For instance, in California, plaintiffs have filed...more
Future LLC, a magazine and website publisher and owner of the TechRadar.com website, faces allegations that it collected website visitors’ IP addresses without consent in violation of the California Invasion of Privacy Act...more
As readers of our blog know, the use of website user tracking software has been the subject of many recent consumer privacy lawsuits. The latest iteration of consumer privacy cases involves the use of “pen registers” that...more